At BlizzCon last year, we had our first look at one of the new characters for Diablo III, the Monk. At the time, we were only shown the male of the species, and it’s taken the art guys half a year to get their act together and finish some concept art that they can show us for the female.

Somewhat predictably, she’s amazing. And blonde, but very much not the stereotype you might expect.

Personally, I’m pretty impressed with the Blizzard art guys. Remember the character has been inspired by pen-and-paper RPGs as well as arcade-style fighting games, favouring speed over toughness – and that’s pretty evident in the way she’s presented. She’s got muscles, but isn’t a tank, and they’ve dressed her in an outfit that’s almost a direct translation of her male counterpart, rather than dolling her up. The Monk character is the Holy Warrior of Sanctuary, fighting is their way of paying respects to their 1,001 gods – and this is a girl who looks like she’s dedicated to her life’s work.

There’s still no dates being hinted at for a Diablo III release – last BlizzCon saw the announcement that Blizzard would publish two games this year – and at the moment most bets are on that being the new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, as well as the first in the StarCraft 2 trilogy, Wings of Liberty. Until we hear otherwise, we’ll be waiting until 2011 to get our hands on this one.